“But?” he asked.
The iridescent blue eyes looked past him. “But the kids coming the other way didn’t and they broadsided her at eighty and drove the whole side of the car into her. Heard there was so much glass stuck in her she looked like Christmas tinsel and her ribs broke through her skin and cracked, oozing marrow. Heard there was a hole in her skull big enough to see her brain through—”
“Mr. Fuller.” He jumped in to shut her up.
“What about him?”
“You said...”
“I know what I said.” The amazing eyes drilled into his. “He’s in a bar. Only about ten in town so you’ll find him if you look. He’s a tall fellah, skinny as a coat hanger. About as old as me, with sandy hair that barely covers his skull anymore. He’ll have on corduroys, most likely, and a button-down sweater with some of the buttons missing, and he’ll be soused, or on his way to it.”
She’d just described about ten billion old men, Latovsky thought.
He might find him anyway, but it could take half the day. He’d be better off heading for Utica to see the Everetts. Get as much of the list covered as he could.
He turned over the card and put it on the porch rail to write on.
“Does Mr. Fuller have a son?” he asked as he took out his pen.
“Two sons. Likely enough fellahs. One’s in his thirties, and Mike... Lord save us, Mike must be over forty by now. Time does fly.”
Latovsky wrote, “Mr. Fuller, please call the underlined number as soon as you can. Important. Thank you. DL.” He went up the steps to put it through the letter slot.
“Don’t do that!” she cried.
He stopped and she hobbled up the stairs to him.
“Not if you want him to see it anytime soon,” she said. “He don’t even use that door. Be too drunk to notice an itty-bitty card like that anyhow and it’ll lay there ’til Wednesday when Frieda comes to clean. Frieda’s only one that keeps him from rotting away like an old stump. Give it here. I’ll see he gets it.”
The blue eyes challenged and pleaded at the same time. Something out of the ordinary was happening on her street, and she wanted in on it, even for the few hours until she had to part with the card.
Part with it she would, Latovsky thought. These old town women had the compassion of sharks but the sense of honor of Cyrano, and she’d do what she said she would; you’d have to hack her to pieces to stop her.
He handed her the card; she bobbed her head in acknowledgment and stuck out her other hand. “I’m Ida Van Damm, by the way. Pleased to meetcha.”
They shook and he went down the porch steps to the Olds. He looked at her, and wished he had a hat to tip because he could see from the hones under the desiccated skin and those remarkable eyes that Ida Van Damm had once been a knockout.
Adam’s smile was wide, easy, relaxed. He was wearing a plaid sport shirt, light poplin jacket, and freshly pressed cords. He looked like what he was: young physician on top of the world on his day off.
“You’re not suicidal,” Bunner choked, trying to control his rage.
“No. And I do apologize, Bunny. But I had to get you here without anyone knowing it was me.”
Without anyone knowing?
Adam Fuller was in much, much worse shape than Bunner had figured. He should have known that such total neutrality must hide agony but he hadn’t, any more than he’d known about the scars on Ken’s palms. He should go into another business, he thought with self-loathing. Maybe get a job with a pharmaceutical company as one of those jerk-off M.D.s who vet drug ads. He’d let his patient go on like this for months and now poor Sport was on the edge and Bunner had to pull him back somehow, because a trip down that particular rathole was a journey to hell. He’d rather have his leg amputated without anesthetic.
All his anger evaporated and that good old compassion that made his eyes burn and his throat tight took over.
“Why couldn’t you tell me it was you, Sport?” he asked gently.
“Because I’m not suicidal and you know it and wouldn’t have come.”
Mad, but logical. Another instance where logic and reason had nothing to do with each other.
“But why did you have to get me here at all, Adam?”
“Why... to find out who she is, of course.”
“She?”
But he knew exactly who Adam meant and the next obvious question was why Adam Fuller had gone to these lengths to find a woman he hadn’t even known existed before last night. A dreadful, terrifying answer that Bunner couldn’t bear to contemplate came to him. But he contemplated it anyway.
Last night, he’d gotten blotto and blown his cork about a “psychic” who’d claimed to have “seen” the killer in the woods. Now Adam Fuller had pulled out all the stops, disguised his voice, risked Bunner’s wrath and his own credibility to find out who she was. Bunner tried not to know why, tried to force the knowledge down with all his might, but it came right back up again like rotten food and he knew Adam Fuller wasn’t losing it or going over some edge. He was behaving with the undisputable reasonableness that dictated he find the woman before she ID’d him for five murders.
Insane, absurd, ridiculous.
But it wasn’t, and the instant Bunner thought it he knew it was true.
The only question left was what to do next.
He wanted to play for time; to insist Who... what woman... I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’d been drunk, Fuller might fall for it, but he doubted it; besides, he didn’t need time, he needed help. They both did.
“We need some help here, Sport,” he said quietly.
Maybe something could be salvaged if Fuller said, “I know we do.” But he just looked at Bunner with eyes that were so empty Bunner wouldn’t have been shocked to see the hunting print on the far wall through them.
Bunner kept his voice low and soothing. “Al Cohen might be able to help us out here. You know Al. I’m going to give him a ring.”
Sure, and say what? Al, I’ve got a quinti-killer in my office, what do you advise? And Al would answer, Get the fuck outta there and call the cops.
He wouldn’t call Al after all, he’d call Dave and say, “Al, I’m in the office and need a little help here. Think you can come over?”
Dave would get the pitch and be there in five minutes—a long five minutes, but he and Adam would get through them somehow.
“Sit down, Sport,” he said quietly. “Pull the chair out... they always cram it against the desk when they vacuum. Sit down and we can talk until Al gets here.”
He reached for the phone; Adam reached under his jacket and pulled out of his belt an enormous gun with a chrome body and Bakelite handle; a Dirty Harry gun that would blow Bunner’s head clean off his neck.
“Don’t touch the phone,” Adam said quietly.
Bunner dropped his hand to the desk. He’d never faced the business end of a gun before and the effect was remarkable. His nervous system shut down except in his gut, where ten-pound moths butted and fluttered. Adrenaline spurted through him, but it didn’t make him sharp or ready; it made him helpless. His bladder let go; a tew drops splotched his shorts before he could get his muscles clenched again, and his voice failed him utterly. He tried to say something, he had no idea what, but a sick, thick croak was all that came out.